Week Fourteen

What a mess of a day. I was playing Josh, and all of his players except the kicker played the first game on Sunday. When he came in with only 59 points, and the kicker left to play, I was delighted. At the last minute, I'd made some last minute pickups. Since neither Pennington (vs Buffalo) or Kitna (vs Minnesota) was slated to have a great game, I dropped Seneca Wallace (reluctantly) and picked up Jeff Garcia, the backup quarterback for the Eagles. While I was at it, I replaced Jason Elam (hurt) with the Green Bay Kicker, Dave Rayner. Garcia came through, and threw a touchdown pass to my tight end while keeping passes to Donte Stallworth (on Josh's team) to a low ebb. Luckily, the Eagles barely managed to hang on till the end. Nicely done! The Patriots completely bombed, so that tempered the excitement a bit, but given that I still had half of my team to play, coming out of the first game with only 23 points didn't concern me too much. But then the second game was also split. My new kicker was amazing, but Sean Alexander's 22 carries only amounted to 76 yards. With a fumble and no touchdowns, that added up to a depressing 5 points from my "star" running back. Going into the late game, then, I needed TO and Marion Barber to outscore the New Orleans kicker by 18 points in order to win. Not such a tall order, given that they regularly score in the teens. But then New Orleans beat Dallas, 42-17 (that's 6 extra kick points for John Carney), Romo only threw three passes in the first half, and Marion Barber touched the ball twice all game for a gain of negative one yards. Hmm. Final fantasy score, 52-65, thus dashing my hopes of fantasy championship greatness.

QB
	Jeff Garcia, Phi	14
RUNNING BACKS
	RB Marion Barber, Dal	0
	RB/WR Shaun Alexander	5
RECEIVERS
	WR Terrell Owens, Dal	11
	WR Reche Caldwell, NE	1
	TE L.J. Smith, Phi	7
DEFENSE
	D/ST Patriots	1
KICKER
	K Dave Rayner, GB	13
BENCH
	RB Laurence Maroney, NE	0
	WR Deion Branch, Sea	5
	WR Reggie Brown, Phi	7
	WR Keyshawn Johnson, Car	5
	D/ST Seahawks	1
	K Jason Elam, Den	8
	Chad Pennington, NYJ	3
	QB Jon Kitna, Det	4

The only plus side is that everyone, except for my new QB and kicker, played horribly, so I don't have to feel like I outmanaged myself -- just a crummy day for football.

Next week, I have a bye to mull my losses, and then a final post-championship game the week after that. Watch everyone turn in 20 point games this week. :-)